Long Plaster Poems
Long Plaster Poems. Below are the most popular long Plaster by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Plaster poems by poem length and keyword.
They seep from
long fissured asphalt,
and plaster cracked years.
Hollow houses, boards rotted
by the chew and gnaw of prying winds,
old-time forgotten burgs
lost now within a retreating landscape.
They used to thrive in a hard-scabble way,
used to be owners of hunting hounds
the daughter’s offspring of grit-hardened men,
blood kin to the furnace and the fields.
Both factory and Mill printed a community
upon long dusty summers,
winter launched many a lunch-pail march
and it was good in its bench-made way.
It all fell away so swiftly,
a bottom line in a thick read ledger
scratched through.
Thereafter great-grandparents
were buried in tall clocks,
then carted away upon jumbled flatbeds.
Piece by piece small towns were sold
for pennies - their very own, well-worn,
long spent pennies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the door clicks shut
leaving only dust particles
dancing in sunbeam's path.
four walls hold their breath
waiting for footsteps
that never come
a single nail protrudes
where a frame once hung
its shadow stretching longer
with each passing hour.
the silence settles
thick as plaster dust
in corners untouched
no echo answers
when the floorboards sigh
beneath the weight of absence.
light bleeds
across bare parquet
marking time in slow degrees.
air grows stale
withheld breath and unspoken words
condensing on the ceiling
In a old old rambling structure
Down on the street called Broadway
Upper floors that had been deserted
For many and many a day
Lighting a fire
Starting to pondering
Things from long ago
Remembering songs and legends
Stories that I had been told
The fire light began to flicker
Then undressing for the night
By only a little candle light
Once in bed down under the covers
Slowly going to sleep
Off to dreamland I remembered
Then something pulled at the sheet
Starting to hear chains rattling
Whining through the loosened glass
Then deciding it was nothing
Pull the covers up past my calf
No more than I had pulled them
When something or someone
Snatched them away
That's when I grabbed them
With my heart beating away
Up over my head and snuggled
Hoping that they would stay
But that was not possible
So up I sat in bed
Looking around was when I saw It
Footprints as big as an elephant head
I decided to start talking
Facing my fear straight on
Is when I discovered
Cardiff Giant ghost in my room
I told him to sit down
But then on second thought
Was going to say don't
When he sat, the chair
Fell ascunder and broken
Parts were over the floor
Pieces of tail bone and broken chair
Even a rib and wrist bone was there
Then sat on the bed and in a heap
We're on the floor
Finally I told him
No more, no more
Just sit on the floor
I gave him my red blanket
He used my chamber as a hat
Then we talk about his
Situation what do you think of that
I finally told him
That he really wasn't a wondering ghost
He was just plaster of paris
An imitation to trick folks
That he was really buried
In Albany and was haunting
A cheap plaster form of himself
So off he went in the darkness
Saying don't let this story get out
That I don't even know my own remains
As he laid the pipe on the mantel
Down the street he lumber along
(Idea taken from "A Ghost Story" by Mark Twain. Please forgive me Mark Twain because I
did not do this story justice and definitely not the poem.) (As they say there is a big
difference in having something to say and having to say something.) It did stretch my
thinking and creativeness.
Form:
I had won a sponsorship on a sailing ship,
I was ecstatic it was right up my street.
Trouble is, I was to go in hospital.
But I was promised I would be fit, to join the fleet.
I woke up from my surgery
It was over and I wanted time to go faster,
My lifetime trip, I could almost see,
But I was in bed now, and covered in plaster.
For my trip, I waited what seemed an age
Patience, not being my best virtue.
A sailing ship to learn how to sail,
‘You can go.’ Said the surgeon
‘That I promise you.’
Don’t worry you will be up and about
This is what the operation is for.
I promise you will be able to go
Even though, it will still be a bit sore.
They put special lamps on to dry the cast;
I wanted to know how long this plaster will last.
He looked at me and in a voice devoid of feeling;
‘Oh six weeks is needed to repair the bones.’
I cried, and raised my eyes to the ceiling.
‘Well how can I go on a sailing ship? I cried,
I felt my heart was breaking fast.
‘I need to unfurl sails and be able to climb the mast
How am I now, to do this, and sail the ocean blue?
That is the main question that I am asking you.’
‘My job is to make you well;
And necessary if I find it,
I will plaster you from head to foot,
Never mind just your foot and hip.’
‘I say you can go, but up to me, it may not be.
But that’s not my problem, really - in all reality.’
He lied to me to get me in hospital,
My trip was duly cancelled.
I was thirteen years old at the time,
And on this my feelings rankled.
They sent me a photograph of all those on the ship,
It was supposed to make me feel good;
I took it badly at the time,
But then I think any thirteen - year old would.
They may as well have slapped me in the face
As compensation, I thought it a disgrace.
A year passed, I won again, and this time I could go.
I won the “Best Sailor Cup” award,
And I still have it to show.
Your bones are scattered in a boggy field -
it happens all the time.
Time is your pocket handkerchief,
your shattered wristwatch,
your best evening pants,
all reduced to insect dust.
Hundreds of years later
they discover,
a distant tooth with its crown intact,
later still, a being reports your broken jaw,
unearthed by the sludging rain.
Bit by bit your skull is discovered.
Eventually they have enough of your head
to commence a plaster likeness
of your skull.
Your life is so distantly buried into the past,
that the new beings have to speculate...
some assume you died,
at the hands of an axe wielding foe,
others that you succumbed to a
primitive tooth condition.
None ever guess,
that you flew off your girlfriends Honda,
practicing one last incautious wheelie
on a minor road
in darkest Derbyshire.
In a room where shadows hide,
Life is held by a thread,
To a wooden finger tied,
Waking up the sleeping dead.
Carved in wood and polished sleek,
Porcelain faces and painted eyes,
Never allowed the freedom to speak,
Bound by subtle, silent ties.
Stages carved on party lines,
Falsehoods masked in paint and plaster,
Crowds seduced by staged designs,
Dancing for an unseen master.
A gentle flick of the wrist or palm,
This one fights, the other one weeps,
A tempest held within a calm,
While the master, his secrets he keeps.
Voters cheer the staged debate,
Crowds react to every pull,
Blindly marching toward their fate,
Told the ballot box is full.
Cast the spotlight on his brow,
Rip the shroud of myth away—
See the hollow monster now,
Painted iron, cold and gray.
Glassy eyes that never blink,
Cogs that churn without a heart,
Teaching men to never think,
Tearing living souls apart.
Strings above and soul below,
Every step a scripted grace,
Only he commands the show,
Stepping back to leave no trace.
But then,
The heavy skies begin to part,
A blinding light breaks through the dark,
To shatter every wooden heart
And strike the gears with a sacred spark.
The God of glory will reveal
The grand deception of the stage,
And turn the tables and set the seal,
To snap the strings and break wide the cage.
The grand deception falls away,
The false control is stripped and bare;
The clay was never meant to sway
The One who formed the breath and air.
Who is the master, who is the puppet,
When the final curtain falls?
Wooden heart or human spirit,
Silent in the empty halls?
Written: August 25, 2025
*********
There was a crack in the ceiling.
Above the lamp, above the silence, a crack—
thin as a vein,
but pulsing with something devious.
At night, I stared upward,
its jagged line, such a question
I couldn’t answer.
The plaster flaked as aged skin,
and dust fell in slow confession.
When she climbed the ladder,
she traced it with a fingertip,
then with pencil, then with tape—
measuring the damage
as if it might reveal a diagnosis.
She patched it gently,
not to erase, but to soothe.
Later, she painted it
the same soft ivory as before.
Not to hide it—
but to let it rest.
And now, when I look up,
I perceive nothing.
Or rather,
I perceive everything it once held.
In 1948 Nina Ricca released a new fragrance – L’Air du Temp which means present time. The first spicy floral fragrance. The bottle was designed by Lalique. The two intertwined doves represent peace after WWII.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Perfume Bottle
In the quiet of silenced cannons,
And odor of reviled salutes now impotent,
Midst plaster dust and stained souls
Of shattered windows
A flacon rises from battle torn ashes
Caressing the breath of a woman
In present time
As two doves intertwine
Above crystal swirls of sunshine
Reborn in signature scents of treaties.
Flawless guardian
For the newborn bouquet of hope,
Beneath wings of peace,
As a silhouette of scent
Overpowers the stench of gunpower
And ministers to children’s cries for bread
In a kiss from immortality
Accents of new notes for princess and pauper –
Spicy and floral –
Released like doves of peace.
Observing all, the fly upon the wall,
Sees politicians trip before the fall.
They scheme and whisper, planning their ascent,
On sticky webs of power, time is spent.
It cleans its legs upon the ‘summit’ food,
And buzzes secrets, were it understood.
It watches spouses lie, then softly creep,
While promises are cheap, as kept words sleep.
They rise to the top where there are no ends,
Soon out of sigh, with what they store depends.
The fly on the wall, a tiny, silent judge,
Converging human spirit that won’t budge.
For all their pomp and all their grand affairs,
They’re merely mammals with their silly airs.
One tries to swat it with a mighty whack,
But misses every time, the clumsy hack.
The fly lives on, its life of two days grand,
To watch the finest follies of the land.
For human drama, to its beady eye,
Is just a pile of rot beneath the sky.
A fly upon the plaster sits and waits,
To see which fool will seal his sorry fates.
He watches scandals, secrets, tears, and strife,
The endless, pointless drama that is life.
He buzzes softly, hearing every word,
A tiny, winged, satirical absurd.
He sees the lies in every human heart,
And plays his quiet, observant, tiny part.
This world is just a stage, a fleeting play,
He’ll watch you falter, then he’ll fly away.
A fly upon the pristine ballroom wall,
Obsessed with the mechanics of the fall.
He judges every waltz and every twirl,
A critic in a world of social whirl.
Observing secrets from his perch up high,
He files reports on who has told a lie.
He scoffs at all the human pomp and grace,
And wipes his tiny feet upon their space.
Convinced that he’s the master of the room,
He buzzes softly in perpetual gloom.
she ran her fingers down his cheek,
And across his weathered shoulder,
in and out of the holes in his t shirt,
down his emancipated arms,
tracing the track marks with her fingernail,
there was a fresh plaster today,
that made 4,
4 pieces of tape holding his arm together
she felt loss for the fallen pieces of her man,
soon he would have more plaster than skin,
she wanted to chuckle at the thought of her plaster man,
but she didn’t have the energy,
they hadn’t eaten today,
she couldn’t remember if she’d eaten yesterday either,
An open can of cider lay on the floorboards next to her mattress,
At least she’d had something she thought to herself,
there was an odour in the air,
a off smell,
she thought she recognised it but...
couldn’t quite focus on it,
It’s familiarity danced in the background of her thoughts,
“what’s the smell”
she asked,
“hey”
she summoned what energy she had and nudged him,
“wake up lover” she half spoke,
half slurred,
“hey” she said again,
She tried to concentrate on when he’d last got high,
she couldn’t think of when she’d last got high,
She knew she’d been asleep,
“Wake up”
She threw her arm over his shoulder and pulled him over towards her,
His eyes were open,
His mouth was open..
All at once she remembered that smell,
Suddenly she remembered everything,
In that moment,
She was left with nothing,
Nothing but the recognition of what death smelt like.